114-year-old Supna Hkawn Bu is carried on her grandson’s back to safety. (Photograph: Zau Ring Hpra)

While global attention is fixed on the Rohingya crisis, another ethnic minority is at risk of being crushed by the military

When Tang Seng heard gunshots close to his village in Myanmar, he had a choice: carry his grandmother away from the fighting on his back or run for help. She asked him to kill her and leave her there but he refused.

Tang Seng walked out of his village carrying Supna Hkawn Bu to a makeshift camp for the displaced, where they remain with their family. She has had to flee from conflict five times in her life and didn’t speak for two days when they first arrived.

War in Myanmar is synonymous with the Rohingya crisis but Tang Seng and his grandmother are not Rohingya refugees. They are from the country’s north, in the state of Kachin, where another brutal but far less well publicised conflict is playing out between the largely Christian minority group and government militias.

The forgotten war

For centuries, the Kachin, who number about 1,600,000, lived in relative peace in the northern Myanmar mountains near the border with China. After Myanmar gained independence from the British in 1948, they were promised equality and self determination. However, conflict broke out after the military seized control in 1962 and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) was formed to defend Kachin land.

When Aung San Suu Kyi came to power in 2016, it was hoped she would put a stop to the fighting. But, as with the Rohingya crisis to the south, the situation has worsened.

Aung San Suu Kyi has called on rebel armed groups to sign a National Ceasefire Agreement – which was brokered between Myanmar’s quasi-civilian government and eight rebel groups in October 2015 – but the KIA is unwilling to lay down arms while the military bombs Kachin villages.

“What we are seeing in Kachin state over the past few weeks is wholly unacceptable, and must stop immediately,” Yanghee Lee, the UN’s human rights expert for Myanmar, said last week. “Innocent civilians are being killed and injured, and hundreds of families are now fleeing for their lives.”

“Today all the ethnic people from our viewpoint are just existing, they are just protecting their land and trying to share [human] rights together,” says Kachin parliamentarian Ja Seng Hkawn Maran.

Human rights groups agree. “Myanmar’s peace process is dictated by the Myanmar military at the barrel of a gun. It’s the violent pacification of ethnic nationalities,” says David Baulk, a Myanmar human rights specialist at Fortify Rights.

That violent pacification is intensifying in Kachin. Since April, more than 6,800 villagers have been forced to flee mortar and heavy weapon attacks. That number adds to the 130,000 Kachin who have been displaced over the decades. Many are stranded in the jungle or trapped in conflict zones. Meanwhile, aid agencies say they are being blocked from providing food and other vitals supplies to civilians trapped in the forest. Blocking aid agencies is a violation of international humanitarian law.

When asked about aid agencies getting access to displaced persons, Zaw Htay, the main Myanmar government spokesman, declined to comment.

There are human rights abuses on both sides. On the weekend, insurgents from the Ta’ang National Liberation Army killed 19 people, including four members of the security forces, in an attack on the outskirts of border town of Muse. Zaw Htay said around 100 insurgents attacked at about 5am using small arms and artillery.

Political analyst and writer Stella Naw says despite the bloodshed the Kachin war still doesn’t draw international attention: “It’s a war where civilians are being systematically targeted by members of Burma Army … [yet] the international community chooses to overlook it.”

San Htoi, the joint secretary of Kachin Women’s Association Thailand, echoes Naw. “It is an invisible war.” She points to the recent United Nations security council visit which included only Rakhine state. “They left the country without knowing [about Kachin].”

After preaching the Gospel every day for 367 days straight throughout the 2016 presidential campaign season, Daniel Whyte III is preaching the Gospel for 1,000 days during the Trump presidency. If you think a new president being in office is the only thing needed to save America and 'make America great again,' you are woefully deceived. The church must follow through and "keep the main thing the main thing: and that is reaching unbelievers with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and praying for their salvation, for the problem in America is not only disobedient presidents, politicians, and people, but disobedient pastors, preachers, and parishioners who have refused to obey the Lord's Great Commission which is to, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,' and who have refused to obey God's repeated commands to 'pray without ceasing' for unbelievers, believers, and political leaders." So, we encourage you to pray for the new president, but not to get caught up in the political happenings like the world does. Nothing much is going to change until people get saved and get their hearts right with the Lord. And that is what this campaign is all about.

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